Pattern Freezing Ferocious February

[Webberweather53]

The placement of the ridge in Alaska and near Scandinavia at day 2-3 is exactly where you'd want them to be if you were rooting for a split of the polar vortex in the long range. A negative height anomaly over Eurasia coupled w/ a strong Scandinavian block oth would favor displacement.



Taken from Maritus, Polvani, & Davies (2009).



Henceforth, a little over a week later, whola the vortex splits in half.

 

[Tarheel1]

Stop it, now. Don't throw this back on me. You are not correctly describing what you are trying to say and are trying to play word games .

Don't you put that evil on him Ricky Bobby-

 

[Tarheel1]

The placement of the ridge in Alaska and near Scandinavia at day 2-3 is exactly where you'd want them to be if you were rooting for a split of the polar vortex in the long range. A negative height anomaly over Eurasia coupled w/ a strong Scandinavian block oth would favor displacement.

View attachment 3734

Taken from Maritus, Polvani, & Davies (2009).
View attachment 3733


Henceforth, a little over a week later, whola the vortex splits in half.
View attachment 3735

That looks good, but I still think I see a little SE ridge down there!

 

[Webberweather53]

That looks good, but I still think I see a little SE ridge down there!

Yeah it does look good, here's the corresponding climatological wavenumber 1 & 2 patterns from Garfinkel (2010). The twin ridge axes over Alaska and the far N Pacific & Scandinavia are pretty close to projecting onto the wavenumber 2 pattern to a T. The climatological wavenumber 1 pattern is fairly dependent on ENSO especially late in the winter.

 

[pcbjr]

There was a lawyer, going to Court.
Another lawyer, much older than he, ran into him on the way.
She said - You have a lot of books and papers with you.
He said, Yeah, I have the law on my side. All of this written by learned legal scholars.
She said, do you have facts?
He said, I have this law. I need no more.
He lost.
No-one on the jury knew what he was talking about.

 

[Arcc]

I'm curious as I've never paid attention to all the polar vortex spilt talk of the past years and I'm not well versed in it. What would be the effects at 500mb should the vortex split as depicted.

 

[Webberweather53]

The easterly QBO's descent in the low-middle stratosphere has stalled recently around 40 hPa & we're still feeling the impacts of a westerly QBO atm in the troposphere. This can happen (exclusively in easterly QBO events only however) if the near-equatorial upwelling from the troposphere and lowermost stratosphere thanks to the descending easterlies (which modifies the near-equatorial upper tropospheric/lower stratosphere static stability w/ cooling favored during easterly QBO and vis versa) is stronger than the wave fluxes from Rossby-Gravity Waves allowing the easterly wind anomaly to downwell.

 

[Millibar-Monster]

Tom Skilling said on his Chicago weather broadcast tonight that it would be cold for the next week and half and be much warmer from mid February into March. If it's warmer up there it's probably not real cold down south.

 

[pcbjr]

Tom Skilling said on his Chicago weather broadcast tonight that it would be cold for the next week and half and be much warmer from mid February into March. If it's warmer up there it's probably not real cold down south.

Having lived on the other side of the Lake for 7 years, believe me, "warmer" is a very relative term up there ...

 

[cd2play]

Tom Skilling said on his Chicago weather broadcast tonight that it would be cold for the next week and half and be much warmer from mid February into March. If it's warmer up there it's probably not real cold down south.

But the Brazilian begs to differ

 

[Webberweather53]

I'm curious as I've never paid attention to all the polar vortex spilt talk of the past years and I'm not well versed in it. What would be the effects at 500mb should the vortex split as depicted.

It depends on the position, amplitude, and persistence of the tropospheric wave pattern, but if successful in splitting the polar vortex, this could lead to a sudden stratospheric warming event (SSWE) wherein the warming is so intense over the polar cap that the westerly winds associated w/ the polar night jet encapsulating the polar vortex are slowed to at least 0 or reverse entirely. Polar vortex split events usually favor immediate cold in Europe thanks to the Scandinavian blocking high, cold (if any) is often delayed for North America because we have to wait for the anomalies generated near the stratopause by these wave fluxes to downwell into the troposphere and hope that most of it doesn't simply radiate out into space. It often takes a few weeks or so for said anomalies to begin impacting the troposphere, thus we wouldn't really see any sensible effect from this PV splitting event until late February or March at the earliest, if we do at all. There are many cases in La Ninas where we actually turn much warmer following a SSWE.

 

[Webberweather53]

 

[SoutheastRidge]

Tom Skilling said on his Chicago weather broadcast tonight that it would be cold for the next week and half and be much warmer from mid February into March. If it's warmer up there it's probably not real cold down south.

You never know. It could be 0 in Atlanta and 70 in Chicago. Anything is possible.

 

[cd2play]

As my grandma would say go jump in the lake.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who is getting annoyed by his "I can't wait until severe weather season gets ramped up", etc.

 

[cd2play]

So a SSW or PV split doesn't even guarantee cold here?! Wow we really suck. we basically don't know if we'll get cold at all. It's really upsetting to hear how this can February is turning into a dud. That's what we get for being ahead of ourselves. At least some of us. The chances of warm are probably higher now. I guess we just may have to wait till next year

What is a can February? I drink out of the bottle

 

[cd2play]

So a SSW or PV split doesn't even guarantee cold here?! Wow we really suck. we basically don't know if we'll get cold at all. It's really upsetting to hear how this can February is turning into a dud. That's what we get for being ahead of ourselves. At least some of us. The chances of warm are probably higher now. I guess we just may have to wait till next year

There's no guarantee that the SSW impacts Eurasia. The cold could simply get all dumped into the Pacific, aka 2011-12.

 

[Clayton]

There's no guarantee that the SSW impacts Eurasia. The cold could simply get all dumped into the Pacific, aka 2011-12.

I meant Fab February. But I get your point

 

[Rain Cold]

All I want to know is if it’s going to get cold and snow here again. Can anyone tell me that?!

 

[ForsythSnow]

All I want to know is if it’s going to get cold and snow here again. Can anyone tell me that?!

Yes it will. Just be patient between now and 2020. In seriousness, I'm not sure. Nothing is clear beyond the next 24 hours it seems, and even foggier beyond 126 hours. If we don't see any good signs by late February, I'd call it quits or gamble on a rare March storm.

 

[GeorgiaGirl]

I'm going to guess that whatever happens in February, at least a few people aren't going to like it. Even if it's a cold February.